First off, I’d like to say that the religion aspect of this situation has nothing to do with my personal feelings at all. I don’t harbor ill will towards any religion. I only hate people who use religion (or race for that matter) to get what they want. The religion was included in this retelling of the situation because it was what it was. Now onto the story…

Sit down kids this is a long one.

Back at B&N (where all of my horror stories come from) I was happily writing the next schedule in my little office. One of the Department managers was running the floor so I didn’t need to be out there at the moment. Nothing out of the ordinary. L__, one of the leads at the time, comes into the backroom to tell me he was there shopping (it was his day off). He saw several women dragging wooden chairs over to the Religion section and blocking the entire aisle. If you’ve ever been to a B&N these wooden chairs are huge and extremely heavy.

Now this aisle is the main aisle to get to the restrooms, break room, and is the main aisle to the emergency fire exit. He told me he didn’t think much of it at first, until a woman in a wheelchair was told to “Go around!” when she tried to get through on her way to the restroom. Yes, a woman in a wheelchair.

So, L__ asked them to please move as they were blocking the entire aisle. The women then demanded to have the entire Judaica section moved to the café onto the tables so they could peruse the books. L__ told them they were more than welcome to take a few books at a time over there and sit at the tables provided but we could not move the entire section over there. Then they wanted to speak to the manager.

L___ comes back and tells me this story. I go out there figuring this would be nice and easy, just re-explain what he had already said, and go back to my schedule. Not so. I go out there and there are the 6 or 7 women. (It’s been a long time and I can’t remember). All of them have dragged the heavy wooden chairs from various parts of the store in front of the Religion section. I walk up to them and no sooner than I say hello, they surround me in a circle like a gang school fight.

Now here is when I will relay the story as best as I can remember…I don’t have exact quotes as I have tried very hard to forget this whole horrible experience.

The Ringleader of the group steps out of the circle and gets in my face. She makes her demands about moving the entire Judaica section to all the café tables. I explain to her that this cannot be done. What if someone else wanted to look at the books and they walk up to find 3 empty bookcases of shelving. I also explain that my lead saw her group tell a woman in a wheelchair to go around b/c they were blocking the entire aisle.

She then not only called me anti-semitic but then said I also was discriminating against her b/c she too, was handicapped. I told her that I didn’t know what her Religion was until she just told me and that I also didn’t know she was handicapped. I told her if she was handicapped, that she should then understand why telling a woman in a wheelchair to go around several aisles of bookcases to get to the restroom b/c the direct route was blocked would be wrong.

Then she began to lean into my face. Curse at me. Spittle was shooting from her mouth. She threatened to “shove her cane up my ass” if I kept the “smirk on my face”. She called me a cunt. She called me a bitch. The reason I was smiling, and no, I was not smirking – was because it’s my defense. No matter the situation – I smile. Inside, I was shaking, with fear and anger – but I am trained to smile and so I did.

Now being that she had verbally threatened me and cursed at me I told her if she continued like this she would have to leave my store. She said no. She continued to yell in my face, cursing at me – called me a “Spic”.

Meanwhile – as I’m trying to talk my way out of this – a man with a baby in a stroller comes down the aisle – headed toward the restroom. He comes up to the back of one of the women holding the circle and says “Excuse me Ma’am”. To which half the women turn and spit out “GO AROUND!” He stands there stunned, shrugs and then proceeds to back up and go around the long way.

I asked her to get out of my personal space. She threatened me more. I tried to back out and her pals closed the circle tighter. I shot a glance around and saw L___ there with R___ (another lead and one of my best friends to this day). I don’t remember what happened next – if he came and pulled me out of their predatory circle or if I managed to inch out on my own. I also can’t remember if I told her we were calling mall security or if he did… or R____...I truly can’t recall. I do remember the response was “You go right ahead and call them – I dare you!”

Walking back to the info desk to make the call – I see the Department manager standing there wide-eyed. I told her what was happening and she says she knew – she was watching. I went off on her. Not one of my best moments – but I sarcastically thanked her for helping her co-workers out when they are being physically threatened and told her I would see to her later.

So in comes mall security. I walk them over to where the women were. They were back to going through the books as if nothing had happened. There were piles of books all over the chairs, and the floor. As soon as the Ringleader saw me, she jumped up onto one of those wooden chairs and whipped a thick hardcover book directly at my head. Yes, jumped…and this is the one who claimed she was handicapped and needed a cane. I can’t even jump up onto a chair without seriously hurting myself! None of these women could have been any older then late thirties – mid forties BTW.

It was surreal. I watched it come at me and I couldn’t move. One of the security guards jumped in front of me to shield me. Another security guard grabbed me and shoved me behind him just as Ringleader woman’s hands thrust out to claw at me. Yes, in that brief moment of time she jumped on a chair – whipped a hardcover book at me and then jumped back down and ran over about the 10 feet to me to try to claw my face off. Her cronies then kicked into action and tried to pry the security guard off of her so she could get to me.

At this point, my nerves finally broke and I started to laugh. A bit strange – but I was so stressed, scared and upset that giggles began erupting from me uncontrollably. I don’t know why but they did – and whoa boy did that infuriate her even more. Then I started to shake.

More security was there and all of them were dragged out of the store. I went to immediately type up a written statement of everything that had occurred along with L___ & R____. The women were screaming about suing me and B&N, and yelling about brutality and persecuting Jews….their screams could be heard into the parking lot.

Some random customer came up to me and said that he gave them his card and if they were going to sue me, he wanted me to know he’d be representing them. WTF? L___ told him to get out.

I covered my ass with statements from the witnesses, from mall security, emails to corporate and LP. I also faxed these all to the DM at the time. This DM was our DM for less than a month, and replaced by someone else just as quickly. I never even met him.

I received a package in the mail maybe a week later with copies of the individual letters written to the corporate office from each of the cronies saying how I abused them and told them to get out of the store for no reason. Then the religion card came out and was used to the limit and then some. Nowhere in the letters did it say how I was physically threatened or how they attempted to assault me several times. Also in that package, was a letter from the mystery DM apologizing for their “inconvenience” and telling them the “problem” (a.k.a. ME) would be taken care of, and of course they were allowed to shop in our stores anytime and no, they were not banned from our stores.

I threw a fit. No, I was never punished for it, however – I did call HR and demand that an apology be made to me and that the mystery DM retract his saying those people were allowed back in the store. I said I would not work in such a hostile work environment where a company allowed customers to abuse and threaten and attempt to assault it’s employees and the customers were then welcomed back with open arms and apologized to.

Shortly thereafter, mystery DM was no longer with us. I never saw those women again thank goodness.

And that my friends, was the worst customer experience I have ever had.

__________________"I don't want any part of your crazy cult! I'm already a member of the public library and that's good enough for me, thanks!"